Yeah, judicial office must be different because Republicans who beg off the ballot always get nominated for judge in the Bronx or something. I don’t know why they can’t do that with Collins. Maybe Collins should register to vote in one of his out-of-state homes (he has homes in two other states IIRC) and that would be that.
The NY Times reports that the GOP doesn’t want to replace Collins with a state senator because the party has a slim majority in the state senate and because if a liberal judge rules that Collins must stay on the ballot it would leave that state senator in the lurch. The article mentions that the Erie County Comptroller, who isn’t up for reelection this year, is offering himself as a replacement, saying that if the courts rule that Collins must stay on the ballot that he can continue as county comptroller and no other office would be affected. The county comptroller’s name is Stefan I. Mychajliw, so I hope that they can include the name on the ballot and that Republicans don’t have to write in his name. You may remember that when Tom DeLay dropped out of his 2006 reelection after his phony, politically motivated indictment that later got thrown out, the Fort Bend County Republican Party chose a lady with the name of Shelley Sekula-Gibbs as DeLay’s replacement for the regular general election, but the courts ruled that her name could not appear on the ballot, and, to make matters even worse, the voting machines did not allow writing on the ballots, so voters had to use some sort of disk and find each of the 18 letters in her name (plus a space and a hyphen) in order to write her in. (Not surprisingly, Sekula-Gibbs lost the election, although she did win the special election held that same day for the month remaining in the term in which (i) her name did appear on the ballot and (ii) Democrat nominee Nick Lampson did not compete in the special election because he wanted to avoid confusing Democrat voters who might vote for him in the special but then not vote for him in the regular election.)
I heard that
1)It’s too late for him to move out of state
2)He’s not a lawyer so he can’t run for Judge
I don’t know if either is true or if the residency requirements have changed since Lazio in 2010.
All I know is this has the veneer of desperate fools grasping in the dark and I’m starting to get concerned. It’s past time to make a decision and a move.
“the voting machines did not allow writing on the ballots, so voters had to use some sort of disk and find each of the 18 letters in her name (plus a space and a hyphen) in order to write her in.”
Oh God, I never knew that about the Sekula-Gibbs race. Write ins with no writing allowed?!?